Welcome to the Indie RPG Awards

UPDATE (August 2018): The awards for indie RPG products released in 2017 have been announced! Check out the winners as well as the variety of all nominated games and supplements.

The Indie RPG Awards were started back in 2002 to celebrate and recognize the drive and passion of the Role-Playing Game designers who wrote and published their works themselves, with minimal (if any) outside financial or labor support.

These "Indie" RPGs are often hard to find. When published in print, game stores often don't see them unless they are special-ordered. Often, these designers have to rely on, in part or entirely, the Internet to make their works known, or even to sell them if they are published electronically. They often slip under the radar of mainstream awards like the ORIGINS awards, Pen&Paper Awards, Ennies Awards, and many other awards that are based on popular vote. It's a shame, because many of these games, while often produced inexpensively, are competently produced, sound, fun games with interesting rule mechanics, play styles and settings. These awards aim to hopefully promote some of these games to the mainstream RPG public.

All of these Awards are voted on by RPG peers only. This is to try to level the playing field in handing out awards. It would be, of course, impossible for each peer to play, much less read, every single game and supplement that comes through these (or any) awards. However, with tools in place like a weighted voting mechanism based on familiarity with the games, and a pool of peers interested in small press games from all gaming walks of life (both indie and mainstream), and a huge "research gap" time between registration and voting, we feel that all games that submit for these awards will have a fair chance.

Registration will conclude in May, and voting will take place the first week in August. The final results will be presented live at GenCon Indy, then posted here at the same time.